Kael reached Everfell before dawn. The sky was the color of ash diluted in water. A thin mist clung to the lower walls, and the wind slipped through the corridors as if the house breathed out in relief and breathed in his return. He paused by the main arch, sensing something shift behind the stone. Not a greeting exactly. More like a reminder that the house had not been idle during his absence.
He walked through the front hall. The torches along the walls held thin flames, as if the fire itself hesitated. He had not slept, but exhaustion did not feel like an enemy now. The night had carved something new in him. A steadiness. Or perhaps a narrowing of purpose.
When he reached the staircase, he saw Seraphina standing midway down the steps. She leaned one hand on the stone rail, studying him with a quiet attentiveness that held no accusation yet allowed no escape.
"You are late," she said softly.
"It was a long night," Kael replied. He removed the hood from his cloak. "I met the man the house wanted me to meet."
"The one at the wharf."
He nodded.
Seraphina descended the rest of the way. Her gown followed her movement like a shadow trained to obey. She stopped before him. For a moment she said nothing, but her eyes traced his features as if she were searching for cracks in the story.
"Did he take something from you?" she asked.
Kael thought of the fragment of sail sinking beneath the dark water. "He returned something instead."
Seraphina tilted her head slightly. The small movement gave her an expression that was almost curious, almost cautious. "And now?"
"Now," Kael said, "I follow the ledger."
She stepped around him and headed toward the corridor that led deeper into Everfell. "Then you will need strength. The house has shown you one piece, but there are more. The ledger does not run in a straight line."
Kael followed her. "Do you know what waits at the north quay?"
She paused by a tall window where the early light pressed weakly against the glass. "A man who does not like to be found. The kind who counts coin with one hand and buries secrets with the other. If your name sits in his books, then so does hers."
Kael felt a tightening in his chest. "Elira."
"Her memory," Seraphina corrected. She touched the glass lightly, and it fogged under her fingertip. "Memory is made of many parts. Some pieces belong to the person. Some belong to those who watched. Some belong to the house. And some belong to the sea."
"The sea again," Kael said.
"The sea always," Seraphina answered. For the first time he heard tiredness in her voice. Not weakness. Something deeper. Something that belonged to someone who had been pulled by too many tides.
He stepped closer. "Are you well?"
Her eyes lifted to his face. The distance between them was small enough that he could see the faint pulse below her throat. "The house does not sleep," she said. "It speaks when someone carries the right questions. You returned with more than one."
He hesitated before asking the question that had sat at the edge of his thoughts since the pool chamber. "When the house calls, do you hear it as she did?"
Seraphina looked away. "I hear what I can bear."
He wanted to press. She allowed very few openings. This felt like one. But before he could speak again, the house answered for her.
A hollow thrum passed through the walls. The sound was low and patient, like a deep bell rung underwater. The vibrations drifted down the hall and slipped under the doors. Kael felt them through his ribs.
Seraphina straightened. "It has found something."
She walked quickly, and Kael matched her pace. They followed the sound toward the east wing. There the corridor narrowed into a smaller passage lined with old portraits. Faces painted long ago stared down at them with a familiarity that unsettled him. Many looked like distant branches of the Dorne line. Some bore features Kael recognized from the old council archives.
At the end of the hall a door stood slightly ajar. Cold air spilled through the crack. Seraphina pushed it open.
Inside was a storage room filled with crates and scrolls. The air smelled of ink that had been sealed too long. On the far table lay a stack of ledgers, most marked with the royal seal. One had been pulled out and set apart, its spine broken and its pages warped.
Kael approached the table. The ledger had water stains along the bottom edge. Salt damage. The kind sailors feared.
He opened it.
Page after page listed shipments from the ports along the eastern islands. Names scrawled in harsh handwriting. Dates marked with rough lines. Most entries concerned fish, pottery, cloth. Then a set of entries marked with the familiar symbol: a circle with three rays.
He traced the mark with his finger. "The Circle of the Dawn."
"Look at the margins," Seraphina said.
He scanned the edges of the page. Soft scratches made by a hesitant hand lined the outer column. Someone had added notes after the shipment had been recorded.
Kael read the faint writing aloud.
"Shipment held at north quay. Do not announce arrival. Do not open until dusk. Only the chosen handlers may approach."
He turned the page.
Another note. More aggressive handwriting.
"Vessels humming. Do not break the seal. The Saint is restless. The air changed tonight."
Kael felt a chill run through him. "Vessels. Plural."
Seraphina leaned beside him, her shoulder nearly brushing his. "Objects used in the ritual," she said. "Or bodies. Or memories waiting to be bound."
"Did the council know?" Kael asked. He already feared the answer.
"The council chooses what it knows," Seraphina replied. She reached gently across the ledger, her hand stopping just shy of his. Her fingers hovered as if she wanted to touch the page and him at the same time but refused both.
Kael closed the ledger softly. "There is more at the quay."
"Yes," Seraphina said. "A room kept by a man who cannot sleep. He keeps his accounts where no one will look. You must reach him before others do."
Kael watched her face. "You know him."
"I remember the shape of his voice," she said. "I remember him standing on the cliffs with the Duke's father. They spoke of storms they could not read."
"Storms?" Kael repeated.
Seraphina stepped away, tension coiling through her posture. "The night Elira died, the storm came in a straight line from the east. The sea never moves in straight lines. Something was guiding it."
Kael felt his blood chill. "You think the ritual caused it?"
"I think the ritual summoned more than it intended," Seraphina said. She shook her head slowly. "The sea answered. And she answered back."
He moved closer again, drawn by the need to steady something he could not yet articulate. "You are remembering more."
She lifted her gaze to him. In her eyes he saw something that was not entirely hers. A memory not born of her life but carried by something older. Something that moved through blood and salt.
"It is not just remembering," she said. "It feels like someone else's breath inside mine."
Kael hesitated, then reached out and lightly touched her sleeve. Not her hand. Not yet. A small contact, enough to anchor.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
Her breath shook once. Only once. "Only when I resist."
The house thumped softly in the walls, as if urging her not to resist. A quiet rhythm of approval.
Kael let his hand fall away. "The north quay. I go tonight."
Seraphina nodded. "I will guide you to the old path. But I cannot walk with you. There are places where the house allows only one."
"And you trust me to face him alone?" Kael asked.
"I trust the house," she said. "And the house trusts you more than you trust yourself."
The words settled between them.
Kael closed the ledger, tucked a scrap of the margin notes into his cloak, and stepped back toward the door.
"Then tonight," he said quietly, "I will bring back something the house can use."
Seraphina's eyes softened in a way he had never seen. A way that suggested a person standing between two selves.
"Be careful," she said. "Truth can pull harder than tides."
Kael answered with a small nod.
As he walked away down the long corridor, he felt her gaze on his back until he turned the corner. The house hummed low, steady, expectant.
Tonight the quay would speak.
And he would be ready to listen.